I had a story to write.
Chapter 8
Ellsworth McFarland raised his sons to know the value of a dollar. If they wanted one, they had to earn it. Only difference was that while Jack spent, Liam saved. But there was one benefit to Jack’s gambling habit. He learned the power of leverage. Which meant he was continually making deals and continually in debt. Mostly to Liam. This does not suggest that Jack was dumb or foolish. Quite the contrary. The boy was brilliant.
The brothers spent their summers working as tellers at the bank. In each boy’s senior year, Ellsworth made him a junior loan officer, so by the time they graduated high school a year apart, the boys knew more about the community banking business than most of their business professors at the University of Georgia. They studied SAE, pledged Business, and thanked God for the red and black. After graduation they married within a year of each other and joined their dad at the bank. Then came the storm of 1979.
While geography sets Brunswick out of the path of hurricanes, it has little effect on tornadoes and thunderstorms in July. At 3:00 PM the space behind Ellsworth’s desk got too cramped, so he left the bank in his boys’ hands and drove home for an Arturo Fuente cigar and a walk around the Zuta on his horse, Big Bubba, followed by dinner with his attorney. At seventy-five years of age, Ellsworth found that some things had become so simple. His legacy was intact. By 6:30 PM the tellers had balanced and clocked out, leaving his sons to lock the vault and turn out the lights—a nightly routine.
The door of the vault had been marred by three different robbery attempts—one with dynamite, one with various tools including a sledge-hammer, and a third that included both plus a tractor blade. None was even remotely successful, and the marred door had been left in open sight for all the bank customers to see. It was a steel badge of safety. One local billboard even showed a photograph of just the vault door. The caption read The only place in town where your money is safe.
Earlier that year, regulators had valued the bank at $57,000,000—making it a community bank with regional power. Also during this time, an interesting event occurred in history. Despite the fact that Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer from Georgia, his financial policy had become a disaster, and the interest rates reflected this. By the spring of 1979, prime had reached 15 percent. Two years later it would peak at 20.5 percent. Hence, Carter became a one-term wonder. Searching for secure investments, folks all around the South had invested in bearer bonds. Second only to cash, they were sold with a fixed interest rate paid twice yearly. The bearer of the bond would clip off the coupon, send it in, and receive an interest payment that ranged from 6 to 8 percent.
There was just one problem. Unlike a stock certificate, they were issued to “Bearer.” No name appeared on the bond. This meant that, if stolen, there was no way to reclaim it. No way to cancel it. It was like losing a $100 bill. Or a $100,000 bill. This explains why the government halted the issuance of bearer bonds in 1982. But, given that Ellsworth’s vault was robbery proof, folks came from all across Georgia for two reasons. The first was simple safekeeping. Twice a year they’d show up, show a note, clip their own coupon, and mail it in for their interest payment. But then the interest rates went to 20 percent, and opportunity knocked. Bondholders approached the ZB&T, secured a loan, usually at 90 percent of bond value, then took the loan amount and placed it with a Savings and Loan where they could usually get a point or two better than prime on their money. That meant 16 percent. That eight-to-ten point spread was clean profit. And in 1979 this practice was running wild. This meant that on the night of the storm, the ZB&T held more than $6,000,000 in bearer bonds as collateral for loans. These bonds were kept in a file cabinet in the back of the vault.
Bottom line, folks just didn’t trust the government—not with double-digit interest and American boys still missing in Vietnam. H-e-double-hockey-stick no. Folks in South Georgia were waving the Confederate flag, pointing toward D.C., hailing Ronald Reagan, and screaming stuff I can’t write.
The risk was this—while the FDIC insured people’s deposits, they did not insure collateral on loans. Nor did they insure “safekeeping.” But given the visible and well-advertised scars on the vault door, folks from Florida to Alabama to North Carolina knew their money was safer in Ellsworth’s safe than tucked under a mattress. So, to put people at ease, Ellsworth insured the vault contents. It was a no-brainer.
There was just one problem.
The brothers were locking the vault and the doors when thunder-clouds appeared on the horizon above the Zuta. Liam and Jack climbed to the third-story roof and watched the lightning lick the earth.
When Ellsworth didn’t answer his phone, Liam said, “We better check on Dad.”
“Not me. You. Old coot don’t use much electricity anyway.” Jack checked his watch. “They’re cutting cards in twenty minutes.” Without another thought, he hopped into his convertible and aimed the nose toward the beach, the pub, and the backroom Wednesday night poker game. Except it was only Monday. For the last several months, every night had been Wednesday.
Liam drove through the hail, down the row of pecans, and into the yard. The peacocks were all spooked and roosting in the barn away from the wind, baseball-sized hail, and coming noise. Big Bubba was in the barn, the house was empty, and Ellsworth’s truck was nowhere to be seen. Hearing a radio report of a tornado in town, Liam drove back to the bank to wait out the storm. He walked up to the door to find the front glass broken and a man in black wearing a ski mask rummaging through the cash drawers.
Because Ellsworth had survived one world war, one depression, and countless attempted bank robberies, he’d become partial to carrying a Colt 1911. He had also given one to each of his sons when they turned sixteen. The pistol held more bullets than a revolver, and if you were looking at it from the business end, the sheer diameter of the barrel might convince you to do something other than what you were currently contemplating.
The boys had grown up knowing how to shoot and shoot well. So when they joined the bank after college, it was assumed they would keep their Colts close at hand when near the bank. Liam kept his in his briefcase. So when he found the man in black rummaging through his tellers’ drawers, he reached into his briefcase. Liam placed the barrel to the man’s head, and James Brown Gilbert put his hands in the air and confessed every crime he’d ever thought of committing.
That’s about when all Hades broke loose. The tornado hit the bank, and Liam was lucky to get the vault open before the wind tore the roof off, which it did. Liam shut the door, and both men sat in the dark while the noise outside tore apart the world. Due to the portion of the roof that had fallen in front of the vault door and across every roadway in town, it was after dawn when folks found Liam locked up tight and dry in the vault with James Brown, whose rap sheet was already three pages long. They pulled away the wreckage, freeing the door and the duo inside.
Not long after, Jack showed up fresh with winnings from an all-night vigil at the poker table. The newspaper people arrived in time to take a picture of cuffed James stepping into the squad car and the police patting Liam on the shoulder. The picture ran in the afternoon paper several hours later: SON OF ZUTA SAVES BANK.
Remember how they say “glory is fleeting”?
Noticeably absent during all the chaos was Ellsworth. When he didn’t show and didn’t answer the phone, Liam drove to the house to check on him while Jack worked to open the bank. Despite the carnage of the storm, the bank’s innards were in fine shape. People’s deposits were safe with the FDIC, and on-hand cash had been kept safe in the vault. Nothing had been lost except the roof and furniture inside, so Jack ordered a circus tent, erected it in the parking lot, and set up business in the sunshine—which was glorious.
Liam arrived at the house to find the lights out. He found his dad’s truck parked in the barn, then noticed a maroon Lincoln Town Car with a white ragtop parked out front. Perry Kenner had been the bank’s attorney since its inception. He was not only the second hig
hest stockholder, but also Ellsworth’s best friend. He had handled the FDIC filings and handled oversight of the bank’s securities. Witnesses say the two men were friends of the closest kind. They often scheduled business meetings that had little to do with business and much to do with horses, fishing, or cigars.
The amount of leaves and twigs covering the car suggested it’d been there longer than just this morning. Liam placed his hand on the hood, but it was cold. He walked up the porch steps, then pulled open the back door.
“Dad?”
No answer.
“Dad?”
The only sound was a wind chime sounding oddly muted.
He noticed the tangled chime, spent a few minutes untying the knot that the wind had tied, and then walked through the back door into the kitchen and hollered again. The front door was wide open, and rain had blown in clear through to the dining room. He closed the door, began mopping up the water, and then noticed that his dad’s office door was open—and water was coming out of there too. He dried the foyer, then slid on his knees across the wood to the puddle coming from his dad’s office. He began mopping it up, but it was sticky—like somebody had spilled a Coca Cola. He went outside to empty the mop bucket, but the sunlight showed something else. The water was red.
Liam found his father facedown on his desk, shot in the head. Across from him lay Perry Kenner—his blue hand still gripping the pistol that had killed them both. Spread across the desk—apparently the subject of last night’s work—lay Ellsworth’s last will and testament.
But Liam’s heartaches were just beginning. On the floor behind Ellsworth’s chair lay another body. Perry’s gun had killed one more. Liam rolled over the body and stared into the face of his young wife, Suzanne.
Liam and Jack buried Ellsworth and Suzanne alongside Sarah Beth on a grassy hill in the Sanctuary where their tombstones would face the rising sun.
Between the storm and the murders, questions abounded. So following the funeral, Liam swallowed his grief long enough to do what his father would have done—he asked that auditors be brought in to set the customers at ease. Two days later, auditors came in. Three days later, the bank was shut down and taped off. Two weeks later, a flash-light awoke Liam in the middle of the night in his bed, where his three-year-old son was tucked in alongside him. He was arrested and cuffed. This time the caption on the front page read SON OF ZUTA STEALS MILLIONS. Seven million to be exact. Seven million in untraceable bearer bonds.
Because his alleged crime was federal, the district attorney placed Liam in Fulton County Federal Penitentiary, where he awaited trial in Atlanta. Ellsworth McFarland’s last will and testament called for the orderly disposition of his estate, granting an even split between the two sons with managerial control of both the bank and Zuta Lumber left in the hands of the firstborn. While Liam got used to daylight filtered by prison bars, Jack became the uncontested Managing Director of Zuta Properties.
During the months preceding the trial, Jack did two things: he publicly distanced and disowned Liam, and he rolled up his sleeves and learned how to become a banker. From newspaper to television, the rift between the two grew like the Grand Canyon. Because Liam was damaged goods, no one stepped forward to care for his three-and-a-half-year-old child. They said it had something to do with the sins of the father being carried down on the son. So, making sure that sin didn’t go unnoticed, his three-year-old quickly became a ward of the state.
Following the robbery, folks got itchy to know about their bonds. ’Course, when they heard that every single one of them was gone, they started screaming. To prove their point, a lynch mob gathered outside the bank screaming Liam’s name. Technically, Jack could have folded his arms and closed the doors, leaving the town to wrestle with their own debts.
Not many would have blamed him. In the absence of the bonds, regulators found the bank woefully underfunded and unsecured. They told Jack that he either had to come up with several million or shut the doors. Given that most of the bonds were held as collateral for loans, Jack looked at the balance sheet, rolled up his sleeves, and took a long, honest look at his options.
Option one was to close the doors and walk away. Sure, he wouldn’t be too welcome in church, but what did he care? He wouldn’t be broke. Second option was to fund the bank himself. But where could he get the money? That’s when he surprised most of South Georgia. Jack traveled to Atlanta and found a Savings and Loan that gave him a $10,000,000 line of credit using the Zuta as his collateral. With the line of credit in his back pocket, he met personally with every bond-holder, forgave their debt to the bank if they had one, and then paid any outstanding difference out of his own money. That meant, if someone had secured a $90,000 loan with a $100,000 bond, he forgave the ninety and paid the extra ten out of his own checkbook—or rather the S&L’s. When folks heard, they said, “Boy’s got his dad’s character. It’s a good thing too, ’cause the other one sure didn’t get it.”
Word of an honest banker spread, and pretty soon cars with out-of-state tags were parked out front. Around town, perception changed. Where once folks had seen nothing more than a footloose card shark who was a little too thick in the middle, those same people began tipping their hats on the sidewalk.
Jack was no dummy. It required work, but he turned his misfortune into the bank’s fortune. Within two years, his loan balance had nearly doubled and his bank was making cash hand over fist. He couldn’t have printed it any faster. For each of the next twenty-five years, the ZB&T had its best year ever. The path of the bank’s success was a moon shot taking its cue from the American-Soviet space race. Within a few years, people were whispering Jack’s name and mayor all in the same sentence. A few even whispered governor. Jack seemed unfazed, content to work hard and make good on the bad his brother had caused.
Six months after the robbery, William Walker McFarland was put on trial for stealing more than $7 million in bearer bonds. The witness stand was chock-full of unhappy people—including Jack and every other customer of the bank, which included most every inhabitant in Brunswick, Sea Island, St. Simons Island, and Glynn County. Six different tellers placed their hands on a four-inch Bible and swore “So help me God” that the bonds were in the vault that afternoon before closing. Four different police officers and two plainclothes investigators swore on the same Bible that the bonds were gone when they inspected the vault the morning after the storm. As the DA laid out his case, it became clear that the only two people in or near the vault who had access or any hope of getting into it were Liam and his new best buddy, James Brown Gilbert. The only other person who knew the combination was Jack, but his alibi was a hard nut to crack. Six people, including two exposed church elders who did not like facing their fellow congregants in the jury, swore under oath that Jack had been sitting at the card table with them.
The DA put James Brown Gilbert on the stand, but they soon discovered what most in town already knew. James Brown was about ten cards shy of a full deck. When he said, “I don’t know nuffin’ ’bout no bombs,” the jury looked at Liam and frowned. Then they swore.
The jury made a simple decision. Called it a crime of association. Liam, and only Liam, was in the vault, and so were the bonds. By the time he left, they were gone. Given the storm, no one else had access or could have gotten away with it. This alone explains why the trial was short and sentencing severe: forty-seven years in prison—and 200 percent retribution. The courtroom cheered when the verdict was read. Liam’s ownership in the bank was spread among the current share-holders. But that only paid half his debt to the bank, and because it was early in the seventies and interest rates were on their way to 20 percent, cash was in low supply—meaning few to no buyers existed who could fork out several million for timberland. To pay the remainder of his debt, Liam sold half his ownership in the Zuta to Jack who, with his own S&L line of credit, paid him fifty cents on the dollar. The result did two things: it gave Jack 61 percent of the bank and 75 percent of the Zuta, and it gave Liam forty-seven years
to think about it.
Funny thing, no one ever found the bonds.
Somewhere about this time, the reality of Liam’s life began to sink in. Looking at a clean mirror, only one issue remained. Given the climate at home, the absence of family willing to step up and raise his son, and the fact that most of the town wanted his head on a platter, Liam decided he could help his son most by distancing him from his name and the stigma of his incarceration. Somewhere in a jail cell in Atlanta, he made the second hardest decision of his life. He signed over power of attorney for his three-year-old son to the State of Georgia. Further, he asked the state to seal the file—forever. That done, he lay in his cell and refused to eat or drink for nineteen days. When they took him to the medical ward and attempted to put an IV in his arm, he fought until he passed out, at which time they inserted the needle and fed him. When he awoke two days later under the heavy fog of sedation, he wiggled his fingers and toes, saw the ceiling instead of God, and realized that he was healthy and still in hell.
The local incarcerated population learned of the silver-spoon kid gone bad, and to heap insult atop injury, they collectively renamed William Liam Walker. Within days, he was affectionately referred to as “Wil-Lee.”
Five months into Liam’s jail sentence, Jack arrived at the prison for an unannounced visit—the first time the two had seen each other or talked since the courtroom. The guards brought Willee in and sat him down. The room was cold, concrete, and dotted with hard, dull steel tables and chairs painted battleship gray. Every profane word in the dictionary, and some not, had been etched into the thick paint.
Beyond the glass, the guards watched a game show and ate pork rinds.
Chasing Fireflies Page 8
